IN MEMORIAM: HILDEGARDE HOWARD, 1901–1998

Abstract

On 28 February 1998, the ornithological community lost one of its preeminent scholars with the passing of Hildegarde Howard, one month before her 97th birthday, at her home in Laguna Hills, California. Hildegarde was the world's first woman avian paleontologist, and for much of the 20th century she was the only scientist whose research was devoted solely to the study of fossil birds. Hildegarde Howard was born on 3 April 1901 in Washington, D.C., and in 1906 she moved to Los Angeles with her parents. Her father was a writer, often writing and editing scripts for the early movie studios in Hollywood; her mother was a musician and composer. Hildegarde published the first of her 150 papers on avian paleontology, general science, curation, and other matters in an international high school natural history bulletin in 1923, shortly after she began her affiliation with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County as a student worker from UCLA. She met her husband, Henry Anson Wylde (who later became Chief of Exhibits at the museum), in 1924 when she began working there as a day laborer. The two of them sorted fossil bones from Rancho La Brea in the basement of the original museum building. They were married on 6 February 1930 and enjoyed 54 years together before a heart attack took his life in October 1984. They had no children. Hildegarde joined the AOU in 1928, became an Elective Member in 1935, and became a Fellow in 1946. She was awarded the AOU's distinguished Brewster Memorial Award in 1953 for her outstanding contributions to avian paleontology. She was a long-time member of the Cooper Ornithological Society (Honorary Life Member), the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (Charter Member and later Honorary Life Member), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Fellow), the Geological Society of America (Fellow), the California and Southern California Academies of Sciences (Fellow), Phi Sigma, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Xi. She also was a Research Associate of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and a member of the Church of the Brethren. She was active in a variety of group programs in the retirement community of Laguna Hills, California, where she and Henry moved in 1968. In 1973, the California Academy of Sciences honored her as a Distinguished California Scientist and featured a special public exhibition of her works. When Hildegarde began attending the Southern Branch of the University of California (now known as the University of California at Los Angeles, or UCLA) in 1920, she was not the least bit inclined toward a career in biology; she was planning a career in journalism. Her first biology instructor, Miss Pirie Davidson, made the subject so interesting, however, that she not only became deeply interested but became a laboratory assistant in the class. At that time Dr. Loye Miller was chairman of the Biology Department. Through the efforts of Miss Davidson, Hildegarde obtained a part-time job working for Dr. Chester Stock, a well-known mammalian paleontologist. Beginning in 1921, Hildegarde worked for Dr. Stock, sorting bones from Rancho La Brea in the basement of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art (now known as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County), even though he was at the time teaching at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1922, Hildegarde went to Berkeley to finish her undergraduate degree (UCLA was a two-year school at the time). At Berkeley, she took classes from Dr. Stock while continuing to work for him.